High Kingdom of Ailethéon

Ailethéon was originally founded by several clans migrating eastwards onto the high plateau of Vránzoúala and subjugating the states already in the area. The core settlement zone of Ailethéon was established on the furthest west of the major floating islands, and soon grew into a hub of commerce. Utilizing their martial style of the western tribes, they managed to, by 944, assert control over the verdant divide, a high magical zone separating the plateau from the foothills and jungles of the east, and secured the tribute of the clans of the east by the beginning of the 11th century. In the year 1153, the nation manged to reach the port of Angchrapur and establish strong trade ties with the gnomes there, who ruled the coast from the Richtbaai Islands. This would later lead them into conflict with the gnomes of the Sevel Bay, whose coastal Anemoi allies were in opposition to Ailethéon anyways.

After their alliance with the Gnomes of Anchrapur, Ailethéon became a major trade passageway for goods flowing from the Aimaur Empire, much to the chagrin of the gnomes of the Sevel Bay. This started a diplomatic war for influence in Aimaur between the two powers. However, with the borders of Aimauria and Ailethéon never demarcated, relations soon became hostile. The Anemoi assumed that their control of the mountains extended to the foothills, and that the human tribes living on these slopes were living there under their protection. Ailethéon began to assert this claim as they sought to extend control over trade routes. However, this conflicted with the Aimauri claim, that the mountain peaks marked the border and that the tribes living there were their tributaries. Indeed, Aimauria had drawn tribute from these lands during the 11th century and these tribes were a core part of their caste system.

Further complicating matters, many of these Aimauri tribes despised the Empire and fled to the highlands. Numerous incidents occured where the Aimaur Empire demanded that Ailethéon return their escaped people, but Ailethéon, claiming them as their own citizens, would never agree to this. In defiance of the imperial decree, Ailethéon began making inroads to the lower castes of Aimauria and expanding their influence within the border regions. When Aimauria fell into civil war in 1227, Ailethéon supported a rebellion by the slaves and lower castes, organized into a protectorate of their Empire. However, within ten years this move proved to have been ill-advised. The reactionary faction of human supremacists had defeated their rivals and now marched to finish off the peasant republic and their Anemoi overlords. Defeating the peasants and pushing the Anemoi back to the mountaintops by 1234, this marked the end of the Aimauri Civil War, but it was just the beginning of the Aimaur-Anemoi Hundred Years of War.

Though various wars occured over the next hundred years, by 1300 Ailethéon would find itself on the ropes. Having lost control over the Verdant Divide in 1312 to rebels and with the tribes of the west no longer loyal, when Ailethéon's armies suffered a defeat against the Aimari in 1320 their nation would crumble and their capital was seized by their former vassals. Though it would change hands many times since 1320, their former seat of power remains a well-fortified floating island, and in the modern day serves as the political center of the Istráno-Blesti clan. The Ailethéon clan itself would flee to the highlands just north of Anghrapur, where they would later become subsidiaries of another Anemoi nation and eventually were subsumed into the clans living in the region today (though technically the line still exists they are entirely powerless).